Translating ADHD

This week we are delighted to present another special episode dedicated to exploring the lived experiences of people of color with ADHD by presenting an interview with ADHD coach Marc Almodovar.

Along with being a coach, Marc is an advocate for men’s mental health and runs a support group for men with fellow mental health advocate John Hazelwood. In this episode, Marc speaks about his own challenges growing up with ADHD and depression in a Hispanic community wary of mental health issues. Marc shares how his own diagnosis at 16 changed everything for him, answering so many questions, and how he found support and encouragement from his similarly wired father. Marc discusses with Cam how his desire to change the narrative on men’s mental health inspired him to share his own story of struggle and resilience and how the power of a supportive community is essential to real change.

Join us in this fascinating, inspiring and far-ranging discussion with Marc Almodovar. Marc’s attitude and enthusiasm will carry you through the rest of your day!

• Marc’s Twitter feed
• ADHD Men’s Support Group
• Advocate Kofi Obeng Interview
• ADHD Parent Advocate Rhashidah Perry Jones Interview
• ADHD Coach Inger Shaye Colzie Interview
• Join the Community | Become a Patron
• Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
• About Cam and Shelly

• Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
• Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
• Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Hosts Shelly Collins and Cameron Gott pivot away from their exploration of emotions and emotional dysregulation and introduce a central coaching element - Cultivating a Practice. They lay out general concepts of developing a practice, distinguishing universal practices from more selective individual practices. Cam and Shelly introduce the idea of a practice mindset and discuss how perspective work in coaching is a good place to start when wanting to introduce a new practice.

Cam and Shelly integrate their Pause, Disrupt, Pivot model and share stories about how their own clients develop a practice of first shifting their thinking prior to creating downstream change and agency. Cam shares a theater metaphor as a way to get perspective or distance on a feeling or a narrative. Like locking into an emotional mode, those with ADHD can lock into a familiar narrative or story that then influences outcomes. Finally, Shelly shares a few of the upcoming topics including mantras or affirmations.

• Join the Community | Become a Patron
• Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
• About Cam and Shelly

• Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
• Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
• Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Cam and Shelly step into their first deep dive into the greater cultivating a practice theme with an exploration of perspective work, a core element of ADHD coaching. When one thinks of cultivating a practice one can think of an action or a strategy and how to step into a task or behavior. With ADHD it is also important to develop a practice or habit of stepping back from a situation or experience.

Stepping back is a reflective practice and allows us to view how we are looking at a dilemma or a situation. How we are looking at a situation is as important if not more important than the actual situation. Are you looking at something from a One Down perspective? A place of shame or fear? What is it to view it as an equal? To view it from a core value?

This is perspective work and perspectives matter because they are ultimately tied to motivation and seeing oneself in the picture. Shelly shares one of her first coaching sessions where she experienced a client’s perspective shift around time. Perspective shifts are about awareness in a different way and Shelly as her younger coach was amazed at how the client shifted her thinking around a recurring dilemma which then motivated her to address the problem proactively. Shelly pulls in our pause, disrupt, pivot process and how it can help with perspective shifts and also suggests listeners to focus in one small area of their lives with their practice here.

• Join the Community | Become a Patron
• Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
• About Cam and Shelly

• Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
• Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
• Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Shelly and Cam continue in the vein of cultivating a practice and perspectives, looking at deeper perspective work over a longer period of time. People change and grow. The worlds and realities they create and live in change too. It only makes sense that their thinking evolves with that change. This is at the root of perspective - how we look at a situation is just as relevant and informing as the actual situation. There is a plethora of scientific data that supports how exploring mindset can better inform one’s experience.

Shelly brings a client example of perspective work over the span of a coaching session illustrating how perspectives can serve us in one period of our lives but no longer serve us as our situation changes and evolves. Shelly’s client shares how her “Solutions Focused” perspective served her well early in her sustainability initiative but then became more of an impediment as her situation changed. Shelly shares the relevance of a practice of incremental change and how we can generate evidence from our experiences to inform our mindset. The practice of Pause Disrupt Pivot is discussed as is a reflective practice. Individuals with ADHD with our ‘mode preference’ behavior can lock into a specific mindset missing an opportunity to take a step back and consider a better way to see a situation. A program note: This is not about just thinking positive AKA toxic positivity, it's about seeing oneself in their picture to create agency and empower change.

• Join the Community | Become a Patron
• Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
• About Cam and Shelly

• Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
• Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
• Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Shelly and Cam explore anchoring as a practice this week. With the three barriers of awareness, action and learning, those of us with ADHD can lose touch with tried and true knowledge and proven practices. Seeing ourselves in the picture matters, but over time the picture can fade. Anchoring to what we know to be true is a proven practice to keep us tethered to our best practices and keeps us front and center in the picture. With ADHD we can set down knowledge and practices like setting down a set of keys. Eventually the keys become relevant when we need to drive somewhere. The irony here is that we can lose the awareness of the need or value of a practice or a nugget of relevant information. Literally out of sight, out of mind.

Shelly and Cam discuss how the pause from pause, disrupt, pivot is an opportunity to introduce an anchor practice. Shelly shares a client story where her client realizes how smelling a candle triggers a connection to a value of lightness and humor. Anchoring to what we know to be true opens us to living more authentically and within our values and strengths. The hosts leave the listener with an exercise to develop awareness around the practice of anchoring.

• Join the Community | Become a Patron
• Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate.
• About Cam and Shelly

• Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
• Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
• Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com